UMECUnited Mining Exploration Commission: A group of friends playing JumpGate-- "a MMORPG that launched smoothly, breaks from fantasy character setting, emphasizes PvP, and is the first persistent world space simulator that nobody talks about." ~Scorch

well, started playing it...Trying out the Byzantines first on hard/early setting.

I've discovered several things that probably AREN'T in the manual. heh.

acuman rating for a general is worthless if one places them in the province...only the titleholder (lord/vassal) can affect the income of the province he's the governor of...It's ~14% per acumen rating, so it's nothing to sneeze at

peasant armies aren't cheap, so don't go building lots just to make yourself look bigger to the AI unless you REALLY need it as a stopgap. (spearmen are cheaper to maintain, if you can believe it)

mercenaries i'm still looking at, but i'm guessing if you build any training facilities the inn is disabled...not sure though. Anyways, remember to click on the hand icon to the lower right after you've selected the troops (show up randomly, if at all. good luck) [not sure need to confirm] okay, i just found out there's a "buy mercenaries" button on the bottom of the training bar if you have a fort+; plus it's random per province, not a national pool

It looks like one cannot build troop ships...looks like it's a method of lining a bunch up on a sea route and then troops can move between shores...even ones without ports. (i think the ships have to be in the sea for one turn, so no route shifts on the fly) [not sure, need to confirm]

one doesn't get the cool cutscenes for assassins anymore, or diplomacy...which is a shame

there doesn't seem to be a way to enlarge army sizes beyond what they've been set to [not sure, need to confirm]

general and upgrade stuff seems to be working nicely this time around...no more disappearing heirs anymore, thank Hamalzah

mmmm...and watch out for old habits from Shogun. this time around horse ranches need irrigation as prerequisite. (had me confuzzled for a while there)

okay, there's a bug. normally, if you shift troops into a province or build them prior to being attacked you'll get them on the battlefield, but i noticed a wierd bug where if you shift around troops between two generals, but not the generals themselves, you'll find anything sent into the attacked province to be unavailable.
wierd, yes. confirmed, no.

here's another "bug": hunting down the silly bishops with assassins needs a "surrounded" tactic and as few ports as possible to landlock them...which incidently helps funnel enemy spies in for the counterspies (best way to level up any agent)

Another one is that for the life of me can't figure out what's needed for "compass"

lastly, the darned crusades won't attack full army (16 slots) for some reason, but will attack to death anything else. (course, haven't confirmed that, but it seems to be so)

hmmm...just found out that if your king moves to a dockless country you're more likely to get revolts in other countries (happened to me in 200% loyalty areas all at once. fun, if stress inducing)

another bug i bumped into is the "we don't need no steenkin compass" problem...it's 1300 and i've no way to build the shipyard guilds, etc

uhm...that's about it. oh yeah, no multiplayer campaigning. waaaaa. The good news is when you go into the options panel from the campaign map you won't lose your diplomats/endseige/assassin/weddings settings like you did in shogun. (was very frustrating having everything reset...heh)

Last edited by MajorFreak on Fri Oct 04, 2002 7:01 pm; edited 3 times in total

-use faster ships
-use small groups of no more than 2 ships
-have 6-7 groups of them
-a fleet travels at the speed of its slowest ship
-plan your sea battles, dont go to war THEN try and beat the enemy fleet - beat the fleet, then you can start your war.

And if all this dont work, THEN you can complain, i, however have never had a naval problem.

hey stu? ALOT of folk have this problem, so don't get pissy when you realize there's no intuitive reason why a number of enemy fleets, always running from your flotillas, can manage to effectively blockade just by continually moving (the computer has a habit of having a few "flying squads" to cripple your trade/transport logistics)

though i do thank you for explaining the guts of "speed"...I went back to an old save game and i tried out the "equal speed or faster" attack plan with an intercept fleet. works like a charm. I even think any slower fleets in same area join in too if you "intercept" the enemy. *g*

But, yeah. get firkin used to seeing this FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTION. (you must realize that your answer did NOT answer our complaint about the silly "flying squad" blockade rule...i heard the patch fixes this silly code. It's intuitive that in order to blockade you gotta stay in the damned sea and rubberneck)

Last edited by MajorFreak on Sat Oct 05, 2002 8:57 am; edited 2 times in total

One point that none of you mention is that Medieval knights routinely got off their horses to fight on foot. Surely a foolish strategy if infantry can be bowled over as easily as some of you suggest.

I've modelled the game on the assumption that cavalry cannot break into a close packed infantry force, provided that the infantry keep their nerve.
Therefore when cavalry first hit infantry, the infantry recieves a big morale minus, and will often break immediately. If this doesn't happen then it depends on the relative quality of the cavalry and infantry, whether or not the cavalry can force their way into the formation. If they do, it's likely they'll win as the infantry unit will continue to get large morale penalties for losing to cavalry.
If they don't break in, the cavalry and break off, and have another go.

The game depicts spear pikes and polearms as being extra effective against cavalry, but this is largely a game simplification for the wider market. In reality I don't think it mattered that much what the infantry were armed with. Greek hoplites, Roman Legionaries, and Saxon huscarles could all defeat cavalry charges.

In terms of momentum, cavalry will always force back non spear infantry, unless the infantry are able to make a succesful strike on the cavalry. Thus it's the quality of the infantry that's the deciding factor. You could rationalise this saying that it's the bold stance ( or lack of ) of the infantry that determines how much the cavalryman really goes for the charge, and how much he pulls up at the last moment.

hmmm...well, i personally never assume heavy cavalry is worth more than it's weight in gold. *g*

I'm the sort of player that tends to cluster alot and doesn't afford any space for supporting cavalry charges. (since the AI usually has enough spears to counter charges)

There has been a few times where cavalry has won the day: mainly by flanking the spears to charge the archers, then charging the rear of the spears engaged in close combat with my infantry...I've never actually had the opportunity to frontally assault anything but archers, it's just suicidal to do anything else involving enemy spears.

The one thing i do need to practice is the spacing of my infantry to allow cavalry charges/disengages/repeats...That i will attempt perhaps.

I do like my Byzantine Cavalry, especially for chasing routers...better survival rate. *g* (though i'm surprised i still have horse archers around for that express purpose, even though they die like flies)

:strat:
If you've never played before, there's a few things you need to know about tactical combat in this game:
FORMATIONS: there's tight/loose/wedge;
TACTICS: there's retreat/hold/engage;

Say you're defending and you have a mixed bag of troop types. First thing you must realize there's a rock/papper/scissors approach to combat

Spearmen are the rock (they'll usually be set up in loose/hold formation 4/5 ranks deep per unit to absorb any archer fire and to protect your own archers set up behind them

Archers are the paper (they'll usually be set up in tight/engage formation with 3 ranks deep per unit in such a way as to match the width of your spearmen)

Cavalry are the scissors (they'll usually be set up in wedge/engage formation behind and to the flanks so they can scoot around to the rear of the enemy -- penalty to enemy if you have flanked them)

The archers are kinda lousy at hitting moving targets, and that's where crossbowmen come into their own. crossbow bolts fire more horizontally...though for pure rate of fire (they all have same ammo limits) i'd go with british longbowmen if you see them as mercenaries

Once your spearmen get charged, set them to tight/hold formation...and once the enemy breaks, set them to tight/engage so they can pursuit better

You'll usually be able to flank the enemy with cavalry to bushwack those enemy archers and thus be in a position to engage routing troops (though you'll want tight/engage once you start your pursuit mode

If you have swordsmen or axemen, they're best used as close flankers set in tight/engage

beware of charging units too soon, as they get penalties for getting tired...plus cavalry have a tendency to break into a spontaneous charge anyways once close enough

Woods are great if you're facing lots of cavalry/archers...keep everyone in loose/engage formation

hills are great too

Wedge is a difficult thing to master since the only way to effectively use it is to order a "run" command just beyond the enemy unit you're charging...that way they'll not stop dead the second the first horse hits the unit; Not to mention you'll want to disengage and retreat a bit to charge all over again. Very tricky, but majorly worth the effort...though you'll usually target enemy archers who have a habit of running like VIPPED DOGS anyways. Once they do that get into tight/engage formation and run them down. (nice way to get valour points for cav)

If you're interested in your spearmen holding the longest you should never have them charge or attack or anything. Once in awhile you might select all your spears and tell them to halt. The idea is that you don't want them to fight, because they're job is to tie up the enemy units fighting them while you win the flank with your flankers(another reason why swords are crucial, you have to use them over orders etc because they kill much faster and you don't have a lot of time before your spearmen rout or break.)

Try using the shock units in wedge. Using wedge changes the way that enemy soldiers are pushed back (away from the attacker, instead of straight back ) and this tends to disrupt the spear units, and prevent them getting rank formation bonues.
I've increased the costs of spear units, and improved sword armed unit's performance against them in the patch.

BTW, I find the need to learn how to set custom group formations.
LongJohn2 mentioned something about that.

Quote:

The formations are all defined in text files in the directory formationData. They are in four files, one for the historucal formations, one for the group formations, and two for use by the a.i. You can edit these to make whatever formations you like. Theoretically your revised formations should work ok online too, but I haven't tested this. The formation template language is quite powerful, and will let you make formations that automatically adopt to a wide variety of units. You might even improve the a.i. by giving it some better formations.
~LongJohn2

"NonMissileInfantry"
WTF?????? "ExtraHeavyInfantry" (only seen this in AI txt) "AssaultInfantry" "HeavyInfantry" "Spearmen" "MediumInfantry" "LevyInfantry" (assault seems to be akin to hvy, perhaps spearmen?; hvy/med talked about with men-at-arms context too, as in nonspear?)

"MissileInfantry"
Longbowmen

"Mounted"

"HeavyMounted"

"MediumMounted"

"LightMounted"

"NonMissileMounted"

"Missile"

"Artillery"

Code:

Slot 7 ; Left flank guard/envelopment
Optional

;;; Restrictions
NotGeneral
MaxUnits 2

;;; Slot position
XPos -10 relativeTo 2
ZPos 0 relativeTo 2

;; Unit Types
UnitType LightMounted 1.0
EndSlot 7

hmmmmm. Since one can specify between horse archers and heavy/light cav...Therefore, i wonder if it's possible to separate crossbowmen and archers? (whether or not the above is true, i wonder how difficult making 2 lines of archer units will be? Uh oh...is two rows of archers impossible? hmmmm. no, it's not. curiouser and curiouser)Okay, so is it possible to have that pic i linked above form up with a click of a button?

Is it possible to separate crossbow/archers?

Is it possible to set loose/tight formation?

Is it possible to set hold/engage tactics?

Is it possible to get 2 rows of archers of same type? (say 4 TA's split into 2 rows)?

Is it possible to get differing rank depths per row so i can get spearmen to 5 deep (loose/hold) and archers to 2 (tight/engage)?

P.S. It would be supercool if the starting "attack" patterns could be coded the same. Gods! w00t! muhahaha...

1) No
2) and 3). The commands to set this are in the template language, but I'm not sure if they're currently working
4) You can make as many rows of archers as you want
5) You set the number of rows to use for each slot. All the units in the slot will then use that number of rows.
The starting formations for large armies are set by looking at the formations in the historical formations file, or any formation that is marked as historical. The computer selects whichever one it thinks is most appropriate for the forces you have

Last edited by MajorFreak on Tue Oct 08, 2002 2:20 pm; edited 1 time in total

why would you garrison with peasants? They're the same upkeep (per unit) as crossbowmen and militia? (besides, most units give the same province loyalty boost per unit as the rest)
and when you're dealing with numbers, one usually needs about just under 500 units to have 200% loyalty for a normal tax rate province (medium distance from king)
the numbers are ~.16% per unit for loyalty.

I personally go with pavise xbow/arbalest with urban militia all packed in a keep for my cheapo provinces. (never know when that darned blockade is gonna drop them loyalty numbers)
I usually keep an index on province output and tax accordingly, plus have all my hitech buildings in the best provinces. (<200florins=verylowtax <400florins=lowtax <600florins=normaltax <800florins=hightax)

As for border forts? well, i skip those and head for churches and priests...plus the fact that border forts tend to hinder your counterspy passive XP levelling, so i never use 'em.
And thanks for the spy tip. EXTREMELY useful since i did a bit of playtesting and a province with 151% loyalty (static) given one spy boosted the loyalty to 171% the next turn...very cool, and no maintenance. me like

Unfortunatelly, it's true. All your reinforcements will be cavalry first. What can I say, the pre-battle screen was the feature that I was looking forward to the most...

A slight workarounds:
- choose all infantry army at first, since you'll get the cavalry anyway
- choose cavalry in first 16, withdraw the ones you won't need to get infantry
- adjust the stack composition; either use a single stack only, or lower the amount of cavalry in the army, so you cycle through them more quickly
- cycle through reinforcements before the battle starts; either stop once the unit you want to show up is next, or "weave" the cavalry with infantry in the way you want them to appear; this is a hassle to do, it takes a long time, and I haven't tried it in VI yet, but it used to work in the original MTW; I don't know whather the order will be correct in VI

The way it stands now, pre-battle screen is useful for choosing you starting 16, and the cavalry bug is predictable, and therefore has a minor advantage, just like the predictability of death at 56 has. There are some other weirdnesses with reinforcements and generals, which I wrote about in the thread I started recently....

I think VI is an excellent effort. Yes, your kings all die at 56. So what?! It hasn't cost me a single campaign. I am more attentive and I might even send my king into a certain death battle, but it works fine. As to the other bugs, well except for the reinforcement bug which I rarely see, I haven't had a single crash, EVER. I have played all factions in VI and some in MTW and the game is great. Count me as a happy camper (I would be happier with a patch, but).

*shrug* i'm not going to buy VI even though i'm a huge TotalWar fan...i'm saving my cash for Rome...*drooool*